Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2005 14:11:53 -0400
From: "Michael Walsh" <MJW at press.jhu.edu>
To: <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Subject: [WSFA] Blish... Re: Enterprise - the end is nigh!
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

> twhite8 at cox.net 4/19/2005 12:42:50 PM >>>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Drew Bittner" <drewbitt at yahoo.com>
>To: "WSFA members" <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
>Sent: Tuesday, April 19, 2005 12:25 PM
>Subject: [WSFA] Re: Enterprise - the end is nigh!
>
>> Can't think of any writers who came out of
>> Roddenberry's stable to establish themselves apart
>> from Gerrold, though maybe James Blish could be
>> credited with getting his career from Trek. (I think
>> his earliest published works were Trek adaptations.)
>
>You're kidding, right?   Blish's "Trek adaptations" were among his
last
>published works and were easily among his worst.  He once said that
>he did
>them in order to attract more readers (Trekkies) to his other works.
>Sadly, this did not happen.  And I guess you're proof of his failure
in
>that regard.

Herein lies the problem... how does someone who has discovered SF only
recently learn about the past?  Which I believe we've discussed fairly
recently.

Blish has a number of notable works, the Hugo winning story A CAse of
Conscience, the Cities in Flight sequence, and others.  Yet, I think one
of most important contributions to the genre were as William Atheling,
jr.. his reviews/essays on SF.  Here's a good summary of Blish and What
Happened: http://www.oivas.com/blish/ .

I like this:  "The man who had made a reputation as an uncompromising
critic of magazine SF (under the nom de guerre, William Atheling Jr.),
an implacable enemy of sci-fi..."

mjw